


Pain

by Cristinuke



Series: Nightmares [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Nightmares, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Self-Harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-23
Updated: 2015-07-23
Packaged: 2018-04-10 21:13:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,658
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4407905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cristinuke/pseuds/Cristinuke
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky wakes up hurting.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pain

**Author's Note:**

> More notes about the "self-harm" tag at the end.

Steve couldn't sleep. He was too anxious and worried about Bucky. He guessed it wasn't too different from how he generally felt, but this time he figured he actually had a good reason.

It had been this last mission they'd been on, Bucky providing simple backup as a sniper and eyes in the sky. He was not supposed to be anywhere near the firefight against some weird bio-mechanical robot army. Well, Steve supposed, not really an army, but at least twenty of the little metal things.

Bucky had been sniping them off, after figuring out their weakness in the fleshy part between two metal plates. But one thing led to another and Bucky ended up abandoning his post and being in the middle of the fight.

That was, right up until his arm got horrifically mangled.

Thankfully, it had been his metal arm, not his flesh, but still. Steve could still hear the screeching of metal jarring against metal as it warped and crushed into a jagged mess.

Steve wasn't sure how it had happened, but between one glance and the next, Bucky had gone from steadily effective, to downright paralyzed with fear, eyes unable to look away from the contorted chaos that was once his best weapon.

Luckily, Steve had been able to get to Bucky, and someone else had taken care of the rest of the lingering robots (sans creator, much to Steve's annoyance). 

Back at the Tower, Tony had persuaded Bucky to take a look at the arm. Steve thought that it had taken a lot less persuasion than it should have, but he supposed that Bucky was freaked out enough to take whatever help he could, even if it included Tony figuring out how to actually detach the entire ruined arm.

That had been a fresh new horror, though, because it hadn't been a simple button that could be pressed and then -pop! off came the arm!- like Steve had originally thought.  The reality of it was that the entire arm had millions of little latches that connected and intertwined with Bucky's nervous system, making it a much more intricate organism than Steve could have ever imagined. In hindsight, he figured he should have realized that Bucky must have been connected to its intricacies somehow in order to have that much control over every little movement of the arm and hand.

So taking it off….that had been, for lack of a better word, _hard_. For everyone involved. Steve trusted Tony, and he was glad when he figured it out and explained to Bucky every little thing he was doing beforehand, and as he was doing it.

But Steve wasn't going to forget Bucky's muffled screams of pain as Tony disconnected the arm as carefully as he could. He wasn't going to forget the way that Bucky's eyes widened in agony as he bit down hard on his flesh forearm. He wasn't going to forget the hurt expression that lingered on Bucky's face for the rest of the night.

Steve had been numbly shocked to see that Bucky had a stump. He'd assumed that Bucky simply didn't have anything there, and that the arm replaced the empty space all the way up to his shoulder and chest, but it turned out that his shoulder was intact under the angry scarring. His arm ended just after his armpit, in a jagged cut that had thin skin stretched over the broken bone.

Steve had also been surprised to see how translucent and pale the skin under the metal arm was. It made sense, Steve knew, as the skin was never exposed to the sun, but it still unsettled Steve. He could actually see the blood vessels, and the way that his muscles shifted. Steve had wanted to look away, in respect or disgust he didn't know, but he was fascinated by every little movement. His spell had been broken the second that Bucky tentatively called out for Steve, and his flesh hand came up to cover his disfigured side. Steve had immediately gone over to Bucky and helped him down from the table, only to be surprised again by how light Bucky suddenly was without the metal weighing him down. It was too easy to help maneuver Bucky into his room and under his sheets, too easy to push pain killers into Bucky's flesh hand for him to swallow, and too easy to brush away sweaty hair from his forehead as Bucky shivered his way to sleep after adamantly refusing to change positions when Steve realized that he was laying on his stump.

Steve wished reverently that  Tony would hurry up with fixing the arm.

Mostly, because he knew how weak and vulnerable Bucky felt without having to hear a single word. The evidence was clear, now, as Steve watched Bucky falling into a series of nightmares, each one worse than the next. Steve had stayed behind precisely for this reason, because he knew that Bucky was going to have a rough night.

At first, it had been less difficult, with a gentle word here, or a calming hand there, and Bucky had relaxed again, but the nightmares were relentless and insistent, and gave barely a pause before Bucky was caught in the next one.

Steve had the sense that the position Bucky was in was somehow linked with his dreams; he looked uncomfortable and Steve was sure that he was straining something. But Bucky had blatantly said 'no' to being in any other position, and Steve wasn't about to force him into doing the opposite. Saying 'no' was still a hard thing to say, sometimes, and Steve was always going to try his damndest to respect his wishes.

That resolve was quickly crumbling, however, once Bucky got caught in another awful nightmare. Bucky was curled up like a pill bug and trembling, eyes fluttering tightly and head shaking as if warding off attackers. Steve wondered if he was dreaming of punishments and demands that his captors had done to him, and he wanted to help somehow, but was hopelessly useless.

Steve was absolutely sure that Bucky was in pain, and he could do nothing to help him.

He knew that if he touched Bucky now, no matter how innocently or how well-meaning, it would just escalate things further. So Steve took to pacing Bucky's room, eyes flitting to Bucky's shaking form every other second and unable to not hear the soft moans and whimpers coming from the bed. Every five seconds Steve had to rein himself in to stop from going over to wake Bucky up. He knew that if he woke him up in the middle of the nightmare, Bucky's state of mind would be a wild card. He just hoped that this dream ebbed away and Bucky could wake up gently in the morning.

That wish was crushed when Bucky startled awake with an agonizing cry.

"Bucky?" Steve called out softly as he came to a standstill a foot away from the bed.

Bucky immediately turned his head and looked at Steve with eyes a touch too wide and mouth hanging open as he panted hard. The next moment, his flesh hand shot up and started scratching at his pale shoulder and stump, deep scarlet lines standing out horribly as he raked himself raw.

"S-Steve-" Bucky choked out, pleading and shuddering and still attacking himself, drawing blood in a few places.

Steve immediately sprung forward and gathered Bucky into his arms as gently as he could, carefully pulling Bucky's arm away. The moment he couldn't scratch himself anymore, Bucky clawed at Steve's back, but, Steve noticed, not to inflict pain; he was desperately trying to hold on to Steve.

"Shh, it's okay, I got you." Steve murmured as he arranged the two of them on the bed, with Bucky practically in Steve's lap.

Bucky pressed his face into Steve's shoulder and whimpered out, "It h-hurts, Steve." He choked on a sob, and pushed his face harder. "Make it s-stop," His breath was ragged and tense and he flexed his fingers tighter against Steve's shirt.

Steve had no idea what to do. Bucky was shaking so hard that he was jarring Steve, and his mangled arm was leaving behind faint streaks of blood on Steve's shirt from where Bucky's nails had dug in too hard.

Without thinking, Steve brought a hand up and wrapped his fingers around the stump, digging his thumb in tenderly into the muscle.

Bucky screamed and sank his teeth into the meat of Steve's shoulder.

"Fuck! I’m sorry, Buck, I didn't mean to-"

"Keep going!" Bucky's voice was hoarse and muffled from where he still had his teeth clamped down on Steve.   

Steve was astonished by what he was asking, especially given the fact that he was biting Steve hard enough to bruise. "Bucky…"

"Please!" Bucky was still shaking but he pushed his stump into Steve's hand.

Steve could hear the pain lacing his voice, but he would always cave in to Bucky. So he steadied the both of them and dug his thumb in again.

Bucky's scream was quieter, but his teeth dug in even more. Steve winced but he kept going, trying to be as careful as he could as he began to massage Bucky's ruined side. Each new place that Steve's fingers moved to clearly caused more pain to Bucky, but every time that Steve tried to back off, Bucky ordered him to keep going.

Steve didn't know what he was doing, had no idea how he got into this position. He didn't want to hurt Bucky, but that seemed like all he was doing. It wasn't until he felt Bucky shift and lose a little bit of tension that Steve understood that the massage was actually helping.

He began to get a little bolder, fingers really digging into weak muscles. After the first initial hitch in his breath and occasional whimper, Bucky started to get his breathing under control, and his body began to lose the tension that had strung him out so tightly. Steve could feel the way that Bucky began to calm down and melt against Steve, his mouth going softer on Steve's shoulder, until he managed to scrape his teeth off from Steve's shoulder. Steve knew that there were deep indentations that would remain there for a long while.

In place of trying to bite off his shoulder, Bucky let his mouth hang open against Steve, mouthing at the shirt every now and again, and tongue flicking out to lick at Steve when he shifted closer to his neck.

Steve chuckled at what he knew to be an apology from Bucky.

"Hey, it’s alright, Buck. Just breathe, just breathe." Bucky nodded against the crook of Steve's shoulder, and inhaled a shuddering breath. Steve had long moved on to Bucky's shoulder and side, following the expanse of muscles that traveled from tough and strong, to weak and soft. Eventually, Steve smoothed out some knots, feeling like Bucky was becoming malleable and loose with every exhale.

Bucky was deeply exhausted, Steve figured out quickly. Now that the adrenaline was seeping out of him in record time, it was obvious that Bucky was only barely hanging on to consciousness.

"Let's try and sleep a bit, okay? You need to rest. That sound good?" Steve pressed a kiss against Bucky's head, and Bucky mumbled something out incoherent as he nodded. Steve smiled softly as he recognized that as an old habit of Bucky's that had managed to survive the years.

"Steve?" Bucky's voice floated out from where his mouth was still smashed against Steve's throat.

"Yeah, Buck?"

"Will you stay with me? Again?" Bucky turned his head so that he could look up at Steve. His eyes were hooded with tiredness and his head kept nodding off to the side when he wasn't able to hold himself up.

"Sure, Bucky. Whatever you want." Steve felt his mouth break into a genuine smile at Bucky's lopsided grin. "C'mon, let's get you lying down again." Steve was struck again by just how light Bucky was without his metal arm, and with the way that Bucky had relaxed, it was child's play to move Bucky where he wanted.

But within a second of laying Bucky down on his back, Bucky immediately rolled over onto his side with the stump.

"Whoa, hey, let's maybe not sleep on that side again, Bucky."

Steve leaned over to tug him back, but Bucky curled in on himself and shakily gritted out, "No, I want it like this."

Steve froze for a moment, unable to understand why Bucky was purposely causing himself pain by staying in that position. Steve told him, "Bucky, laying on that side is what got you in this situation in the first place. You should sleep on your other side. C'mon, I'll help you."

He made to help turn Bucky over again, but Bucky hissed out, "No!"

Steve quickly pulled back and then took in Bucky's position. He was no longer relaxed and calm, but poised as if ready for an attack. With a fortified breath, Steve got up and walked around the bed until he was on the side that Bucky was facing. He kneeled down on the floor until he was at eye level with Bucky, who was staring hard, straight ahead.

"Bucky…" Steve prodded. "You need to sleep. Rest. You're not going to get that if you lay on that side. You wanna tell me what you're thinking?" He pitched his voice low and soothing, and was pleased to see when it worked to bring Bucky's gaze to Steve's face.

When Bucky spoke, it was barely a whisper, hushed, as if shamed, like a confession, "I can't protect myself the other way."

That was when Steve understood completely. Steve was currently between Bucky's line of sight and the door. By lying on the stump, Bucky was facing the door, and, consequently, any danger that might come through it. By lying on the other side, on his good arm, Bucky would be at a disadvantage if he needed to move quickly.

As this realization dawned on him, so did the solution, surprisingly enough.

"I'll make you a deal, Buck." Steve began, demeanor changing into confidence once he realized the best plan. Bucky instantly picked up on the change and he focused intently on Steve. "You roll over and I'll lay down here on this side. I'll be your protection."

Steve tried to make it sound like an offer more than an order, and was relieved when Bucky took a while to think it through. He let him take his time and was rewarded with a tiny smile that stretched Bucky's face.

"Like a shield?" Bucky asked, raising an eyebrow.

Steve huffed out a surprised laugh. "Yeah, Buck. Just like a shield."

"Like your shield." Bucky murmured as he turned over, exposing his back to Steve and giving him room.

"Like my shield." Steve repeated back, getting into bed behind Bucky. He scooted up until he was nearly flushed with Bucky, not daring to go any further. But Bucky snorted and pushed backwards until Steve was cuddling snuggly behind him.

Steve pushed an arm up, over Bucky's head, however, Bucky pulled his arm down until he was using it as a pillow. With his free arm, Steve lightly trailed his fingers over Bucky's pale shoulder and stump all the way down his side and back up.

"Go to sleep, Buck. I've got you." Steve encouraged Bucky gently as he repeated the gentle motions of his fingers. Bucky snuggled backwards one more time, and then relaxed against Steve, tension bleeding out once again.

Steve kept up the idle patterns on his skin, tracing veins and scratches as he heard Bucky's breath evening out finally. He continued the soothing touches long after Bucky fell back asleep.

He knew that this time, Bucky would sleep better. Because Steve was there to protect him.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Let me know what you thought!!!!! :D
> 
>  
> 
> "Self-harm" tag: Bucky scratches at himself enough to draw a little bit of blood.


End file.
